Darkmoon Faire Cross-Realm Zone
It looks like the Darkmoon Faire now has the Cross-Realm Zone feature turned on, resulting in many more people there when you visit now! You can take part in some discussion about it here.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Character / ItemsGreg, what will happen to ch.mode gear when the new exp. hits? Would be a shame if all these cool sets became unobtainable.
They don't strictly need to be unobtainable. If the dungeons keep scaling you down, the challenge will still be there. (Source)
Though to be honest, we're not sure yet what our actual solution will be. (Source)

Will items be something like Bloodsoaked instead of Thunderforged in 5.4?
Yes. Assuming we do it. (Source)

On a side note, will we ever see Progression-Paths outside of Gear for Characters at Max-Level?
We would like to, but we have to come up with good systems. (Source)

could you elaborate on the valor vendor going away in 5.4. That could be punishing to those still a tier behind or more
But we do like having a place you can earn gear even if you don't want to raid. I just didn't want to announce that content yet. (Source)I don't think GC meant that the older valor vendors are going away. Just that you won't have new ones. Right?
The older ones won't go away and we don't know if there will be new ones or not. It's just an idea at this stage. (Source)

PvPWhat's the objection with returning AV back to where it was a few years ago where epic battles could have lasted hours?
The problem is some players don't want a very long BG. We've discussed making long BGs their own thing.... (Source)

Disabling auto follow in Battle Grounds has only hurt the multi boxer.
The problem is when multi boxers are having fun in PvP, everyone else often is not. (Source)The biggest issue is that this change has utterly destroyed a play style that has been accepted for 8 year's!!
Nevertheless, do you think it was fun for the solo players on the receiving end? (Source)

Why isn't PvP gear upgradable? This is driving me away from pvp...I can't just jump into a raid in pvp gear and be hit capped
It takes a lot of Conquest gear just to purchase your gear. We didn't want you to also have to upgrade it. (Source)

Patch 5.3 PvP ChangesBlue post says new players get discouraged cuz of gear difference in pvp. But getting one shot in FULL boa by prot warr is OK
Low level Shield Slam was fixed in 5.3. To be fair, while low level still matters, far more players care about 90 PvP balance. (Source)

PVP power gems are useless in PVP atm compared to a STR gem please explain why or is it blizzards hate towards PVP showing
Strength is still a PvP stat. Why does that offend you? I can understand why PvE gear would. (Source)

What's the point of the nerf to PvP stats?
Getting e.g. a Conq weapon made a huge swing in damage. We want gear progression but not huge swings. (Source)

thx to ur stupid decision cancelling pvp resilience. i am afk . byebye wow.
You understand, I hope, that we're trying to improve the experience when players in vastly different gear try to PvP. (Source)Why even have gear in pvp? Seems counterintuitive, pvp is about action, not long-term planning gear.
Getting rewards is fun. Without power based progression goals we don't think many players would stick with it for long. (Source)
Some might, just as some raiders raid just to see the fights, not to earn gear. (Source)

in 5.3 pve ganked tanks are FAR better than pvp geared tanks for RBG.. they dont need pvp power, defensive stats better. why?
We don't want anyone, not even tanks, to be super hard to kill as FCs. It's not fun for anyone. (Source)

why do you always treat PVP players as 2nd class in wow, bg's are broken,bots run rampant,and pvp nerfs in 5.3, please fix pvp
Look at the list of 5.3 changes. Ask yourself how many were PvE vs PvP fixes. (Source)

http://t.co/KveNIAuLKx Read that please and write back your thoughts on it please
Feel like we have addressed this a bunch. PvPers told us they wanted PvP to be more about skill and less about gear. (Source)
PvE'ers told us they would participate more in PvP if they didn't die immediately until they had better gear. (Source)
Letting someone use PvE gear as *starter* gear in PvP (and vice versa) allows more crossover and gives you more opponents. (Source)

Funny how you guys didn't care about ppl getting smashed in PvP until just recently. Why is that?
Mostly, player feedback. We were worried it was driving folks out of PvP. (Source)

what is the point of pvp gear now? Lack of blizz responses is discouraging. Pvp gear =no point. The community wants a response
The community (or at least part of it) asked vociferously for PvP gear to matter less in PvP to allow for catch-up. (Source)yeah pvp gear is a joke. No point in even buying it. Just afk in LFR and u can beat someone in full pvp
By "full pvp" do you mean Honor or Conquest? Conquest, no way. (Source)Sure, but what about honor gear? 20 item level deficit vs. LFR gear is a lot for PvP power to overcome post-nerf.
If you'd rather LFR to get gear instead of Honor gear, that seems fine. You'll want to graduate to Conquest either way. (Source)
Honor gear is pretty much catch up gear. If you PvP seriously, you'll earn some Conquest. (Source)Intuitively, Random Battlegrounds giving worse PvP rewards than doing LFR doesn't seem "fine" to me, but I see your pt
You can run BGs as much as you want but raids once a week (or so). (Source)But at the same time, when a new season comes serious PVP'ers "must" LFR to stay ahead (aka not get behind)
You can earn all your Honor gear in a week or two depending on how much you play. LFR is nowhere near that generous. (Source)

My level 85 alts only have 40% baseline resilience still, not 65%. Intended?
Yes, the 65% was for level 90. Lower characters will have less. Partially that's because there is still resilience gear at 85. (Source)

Computers - Setup of the Month (by chaud)
Each month or every 2 months, depending on the hardware evolutions, the lovely chaud will work on a couple of hardware setups for those of you who are thinking of upgrading their computer!

This month
The current SSD prices are stable, with almost all SSDs under $1 per gigabyte when on sale. No new GPUs worth waiting for are expected before the third quarter this year. RAM prices have been increasing for the past few months, so if you were thinking about adding RAM anytime soon, now is the time.

The new Haswell CPUs from Intel are here and they offer a ~10% performance increase over the previous generation of CPUs in most applications. They run a little bit on the warmer side, so depending on how much you want to overclock, you may need to spend a bit more for a better CPU cooler like the NH-D14 or H90.

Unless you are doing a lot of video rendering or something that is similarly multithreaded, you do not need the 4770K and should spend that money elsewhere.

Don't hesitate to post any feedback in the comments of that news post, and don't forget to visit the Computer Forum for any extra questions! If you are interested in Folding@home, take a look in our team's thread.

Blizzard News and Armored Bloodwing Giveaway
If you missed our mount giveaway, Curse is giving one more away! The instructions for entering are near the end of the video below. If you want to enter, please post on the video comments and not on MMO-Champion.

Personally, for a battle pet, I would love to see a battle pet that pays homage to a special series, but make them difficult to get so people have satisfaction in obtaining. For Warcraft, I would love to see something like maybe a miniature King Arthur pet. Give it special abilities such as a cleave, Excalibur strike, and maybe Knights of the Round where miniature knights sworm the opponent. Of course due a healing ability like Holy light or maybe Lady of the Lake where she rises up and casts a heal on him.

CRZ can be nice in spots like Darkmoon Faire. But there are certain places I wish it could fuck off. Rare Mobs disappearing due to phasing anyone? (No, I refuse to believe "someone pulled it" before me when I fly back on my regular mount in a nanosecond.)

Haswell offers a theoretical ~10% performance at a higher energy cost (so it will run hotter) and a 10-15% price increase. Until benchmarks are done across lots of different games I'd personally stick with Ivy bridge.

Was thinking of a pet based on the Diablo 3 boss Ghom. Call it Mini Ghom or Lil'Ghom etc. The pet could eat another pet whole for a round or two and also cause damage to the pet as well as heal Lil'Ghom. Also Lil'Ghom could release "gas" clouds or one big cloud over the entire group of rival pets, causing them damage over the course of a few rounds. Like the boss in D3, Lil'Ghom could release one or two adds for added damage. He could be considered a beast or demonic type of pet. I think this would be a good idea for people that play D3 and WoW, make it an award from an achievement in D3 that can cross over to WoW.

Haswell offers a theoretical ~10% performance at a higher energy cost (so it will run hotter) and a 10-15% price increase. Until benchmarks are done across lots of different games I'd personally stick with Ivy bridge.

Quit the game ladies and gents. I did and haven't regret a day. Its also summer, so go take some sun and whatever. To be honest 2/3rd of ghostcrawler's replys make me facepalm. Sure theres a point, but in my honest opinion Dev's are trying to fix something that isn't broken and breaking something that wasn't.